1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a recording medium feeding device and a recording apparatus including the same.
In the invention, the recording apparatus includes an ink jet printer, a line printer, a copy machine, a facsimile, and the like.
2. Related Art
In the related art, in a recording apparatus such as an ink jet printer, there is provided a recording medium feeding device that separates one sheet of recording media from a sheet feeding tray which supports a plurality of stacked recording media, and feeds it to a recording unit which performs a recording process, and the like. In the recording medium feeding device, there is provided a separating inclined portion that is inclined at a predetermined angle with respect to a surface on which the recording media in the sheet feeding tray is placed. The recording medium stacked on the sheet feeding tray comes into contact with a pick-up roller and then is fed out toward the separating inclined portion. At this time, leading edges of the recording media which are fed in a state in which a plurality of sheets is stacked one on top of another, come into contact with the inclined surface of the separating inclined portion and are subjected to the influence of a load (including a reaction force and a frictional force) in the direction opposite to the feeding direction. Thereby, the stacked recording media are separated by the separating inclined portion and finally, only one recording medium which is at the topmost position is fed out to the downstream side of a feeding path.
Incidentally, in the recording medium feeding device, the separating inclined portion is installed at a position opposing the leading edge of the recoding medium accommodated in the sheet feeding tray. Therefore, if the sheet feeding tray is forcefully inserted in a recording medium feeding device main body (hereinafter, referred to as a “device main body”), the recording medium is moved from an interior of the tray in the insertion direction due to an inertial force and thus is likely to ride on the inclined surface of the separating inclined portion. Therefore, there is a possibility that the recording medium feeding device may not separate the stacked recording media one by one and thus the stacked recording media may be fed as they are stacked one on top of another. In addition, even though the sheet feeding tray is slowly attached to the device main body, the recording medium may frequently ride on the inclined surface of the separating inclined portion.
Techniques for solving such a problem have been studied. For example, in JP-A-2011-132029, a stopper mechanism is installed at the position opposing the leading edge of the recording medium in the device main body. The stopper mechanism is configured to enable the displacement between a regulating state where the movement of the recording medium is regulated in the insertion direction of the sheet feeding tray when the sheet feeding tray is inserted to the device main body and a regulating release state where in a predetermined time after the sheet feeding tray is inserted, the regulating state is released, and the recording medium is able to be fed to the feeding path.
Incidentally, in the recording medium feeding device, an engaging portion is disposed in the vicinity of the stopper such that the engaging portion is engaged with the sheet feeding tray to switch the stopper from the regulating state to the regulating release state, and thus the state of the stopper is switched by a displacement operation of the engaging portion. However, in the configuration of the related art, since the engaging portion was disposed in the vicinity of the stopper, it was difficult to reduce the size of the stopper mechanism.
However, on the other hand, if the engaging portion is separated from the stopper, the engaging portion, that is a portion which receives a force from the sheet feeding tray, and the stopper, that is a portion which applies the reaction force with respect to the engaging portion, are separated from each other. Accordingly, due to the influence of a rotating moment, the displacement is made even whilst a force being applied to the engaging portion in a direction deflected with respect to an inherent displacement direction and thereby the engaging portion is unable to smoothly perform the displacement operation, that is, there is a possibility that switching the state of the stopper may not be performed.